


Look After Your Trees As You Would Your Children

by corvidity



Category: Gintama
Genre: Artistic License with Trees, Gen, Slice of Life
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-26
Updated: 2015-06-26
Packaged: 2018-04-06 06:08:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,922
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4210944
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/corvidity/pseuds/corvidity
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Shinpachi finds a tree, and nothing could be simpler.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Look After Your Trees As You Would Your Children

The only way in which Kabuki-cho can be described as fertile is in the sense of being a breeding ground for no-good, self-serving lowlifes and criminals. So why is it, Shinpachi wonders, is there a tree growing in this vacant plot of land between the dojo and the apartment? What’s more, it’s the only sign of life – even weeds can’t seem to grow in the dusty ground. The trunk is charcoal black, its limbs gnarled and growing out rather than up. There isn’t a hint of green on its branches, but it doesn’t look quite dead just yet.

Shinpachi remembers there being a house on the land which had burnt down a few weeks ago. Is the tree all that’s left, spared by the direction of the wind, simple fortune, or something else? Shinpachi is a good, law-abiding citizen (useless where he lives, but he has his standards), polite to a fault, and above all, much too kind.

“Sorry,” he says to no one in particular before vaulting over the remains of the fence to inspect the tree. There really is no telling what type it is, and he’s no expert. But it’s definitely a _tree,_ not one of those exotic flesh-eating plants the Baka Prince is so fond of, and as far as Shinpachi knows, trees require water, sunlight, and clean air. He isn’t sure how he can afford to look after Gin-san, Kagura-chan and a tree, though he figures the tree should be the easiest to care for out of all of them.   

*

Shinpachi fashions a watering can out of a discarded strawberry milk carton, dutifully stopping by the lot every morning on his way from the dojo to the apartment. Whenever they don’t have a job to immediately attend to (a depressingly frequent occurrence), Shinpachi wanders through the back lanes of Kabuki-cho to the tree, carton in hand. Sometimes, he drops by after dealing with whatever catastrophe they’ve managed to get themselves into. (The “odd” in Odd Jobs doesn’t cut it sometimes.)

“Can you believe,” Shinpachi huffs, practically emptying the carton over the trunk, “that a simple delivery of rice went tails up because Kagura-chan skipped breakfast? I know she’s a growing girl and needs to eat, but you don’t _eat the client’s delivery_.” He shakes the last few drops of water out, and sighs. “Well, I ate some as well…” Shinpachi lowers his eyes to the ground. Then, suddenly overcome with emotion, he throws himself at the trunk and wails, “I couldn’t help myself! Aneue’s breakfasts are always inedible and this morning it looked like it was going to eat me…” The rest of his sentence dissolves into ungainly sobbing and snot, and when Shinpachi’s tears have run dry, he has at least the decency to feel embarrassed.

“I’m sorry you had to see that.” Shinpachi takes off his glasses, scrubs his face with the back of his hand, then pats the trunk. He picks up the carton and heads home. Behind him, the branches shiver in the wind.

*

A few weeks later, Shinpachi comes to the tree wearing headphones and a Walkman, the carton in his other hand.

“I’m sorry I didn’t come yesterday, but Otsuu-chan released a new album!” Shinpachi, feeling somewhat silly, waves the Walkman in front of the tree. “I’m the president of her fan club, so I had to be there to buy as many copies as possible and make sure everyone else was supporting her too.” Shinpachi bobs his head up and down to the beat, and rambles on. “Isn’t it amazing how talented she is? And to think that she started off singing in the streets!”

It’s not as if trees know what idols are or even what music is, but Shinpachi doesn’t mind. Otsuu-chan’s music is for sharing with animate and inanimate objects no matter their ability to appreciate it. He whistles (terribly) as he waters the tree, dancing (awfully) as he does so, and when he tires of whistling, Shinpachi starts singing. And maybe it’s a trick of the light, but he could swear the tree straightens a little as he sings. Must be his eyes (perhaps Aneue’s tamagoyaki has become so powerful that just the sight of it is enough to affect his vision), because he knows he’s tone deaf and there isn’t a single living thing that would actually like his singing.

*

One overcast morning, Shinpachi shuffles before the tree and slumps under it.

“The price of a strawberry parfait went up by five yen and Gin-san threatened to castrate the café owner if he didn’t bring the price back down.” Shinpachi buries his face in his hands and just manages to hold back a sigh. “It worked, but if he just bothered to live up a bit more to the jobs part of Odd Jobs, he’d have been able to afford it.”

Shinpachi stands up and turns to observe the tree. “Anyway, you wouldn’t want to hear me complaining! You don’t have to worry about parfaits or money or finding work. All you need is sunshine, water, and fresh air.” He glances up at the clouds. “Oh, you don’t have any sunshine today, but at least I’ve brought the water.”

And he proceeds to water the tree, hoping somewhat childishly that maybe this time he’ll see leaves or buds sprout before his eyes. Of course, there is nothing. But Shinpachi knows better than to give up so easily.

“When you grow some more leaves, maybe some flowers, it’d be really nice to sit here in the summer.”     

The branches wave a little in the breeze as if in response.

*

The next day, Shinpachi turns up with a white headscarf still tied around his forehead and a broom gripped in one white-knuckled fist. “I ask so little of them! Throw your rubbish in the bin, rinse the dishes, sweep Sadaharu’s fur up when he sheds, don’t leave your dirty clothes all over the place!”

Shinpachi rips the scarf off, almost dislodging his glasses in the process. He thinks briefly about flinging the piece of fabric onto the ground, but then he’d only have to wash it, and it’s not like he doesn’t have enough to wash back at the apartment. Shinpachi collapses under the tree instead, and props the broom against the trunk. “I don’t know why I put up with them…”  

His head thuds against the trunk. It’s warm from an entire day spent under a cloudless sky, and the late afternoon sunlight is gentle on his face. Every sound around him seems muffled and distant, the yells of passers-by oddly muted and the calls of birds coming from far, far away. Shinpachi closes his eyes and breathes in deeply. It might just be his imagination, but the air smells fresh and clean, strange for a place like Kabuki-cho.

His frustration ebbs away to be replaced by the weary resignation he’s grown used to. “I know, I’m the straight man and the comedic relief. The glasses are wearing me, right?” Shinpachi takes them off and stares at them. “But… I’m really glad they can laugh about that. Gin-san, when he’s fighting, when he gets serious, there’s that look in his eyes, like he just can’t lose anything ever again. And before she met us, Kagura-chan had to hurt people just to get by, so a few glasses jokes are nothing, really.” Shinpachi hums a little. “Though, you know, I could do with a few less of them…”

The branches rustle above him. They reach up into the sky now, even though nothing grows on them. Sitting there, his breathing slowing to a gentle speed, the remains of Shinpachi’s annoyance slip away with the rest of the daylight. When evening blankets the district, he stretches his arms over his head and yawns.

“I guess I’d better be going home now. I need all the sleep I can get to deal with those two tomorrow.”

*

He begins fretting after three months of watering and there still isn’t a single sign of life on the branches. Summer is turning into autumn, and the colder it gets the more Shinpachi worries for the tree. On a morning when the sky is uncommonly clear and all warmth has fled upwards, he arrives with the carton cupped between frozen fingers. Some of the water speckles the ground as he shivers, but he bends down and pours the rest around the trunk.

“Don’t you go dying on me,” Shinpachi says. “You’ll make it through the winter, alright? And then when spring comes, your flowers will be the most beautiful flowers anyone in Kabuki-cho has ever seen.”

He absent-mindedly pats the trunk and grins. “I’ll even bring Gin-san and Kagura-chan to see you, okay? So just… hold out till then.”

*

Shinpachi stands on the balcony of the apartment watching the rain. It keeps pouring (they’re in their fourth straight day now) and he’s lost track of how many jobs they’ve been called out to involving leaks and flooding. There hasn’t been as much time to visit the tree, but he figures the rain’s doing a better job of watering it than he ever could.

That is, until he sees a fork of lightning, followed by an ominous rumble of thunder. The rain intensifies, hammering onto the ground, but Shinpachi doesn’t think twice. He hurtles down the steps, Gintoki’s cry caught on the rising wind behind him.

Shinpachi ignores his protesting lungs; one left turn here, another corner here; he almost slips going around it, just manages to avoid the puddles-turned-lakes, till he finally skids to a halt at the lot. He doubles over and takes deep breaths, the rain still pounding down on his flushed skin. Out of the corner of his eye he sees a single, pink petal go drifting past his feet in a quick-running stream.

Another roll of thunder sounds overhead. The rain is sleeting down, battering his glasses and making it impossible to see. Shinpachi takes them off, about to wipe off the water, but as soon as he sees the sight in front of him, they hang forgotten from his hand. The wind is howling, the jagged lightning flashes repeatedly, and he can barely hear his own pained breaths, but Shinpachi only has eyes for the impossibly bright abundance of cherry blossoms covering each and every limb of the tree. As the rain keeps pouring the flowers keep bursting, and as quickly as they bloom they are torn from the branches by the wind. Some petals catch in the folds of his drenched uwagi, but Shinpachi pays them no heed.  

“Oi, Shinpachi!” Gintoki’s voice comes from far away, until he feels a hand on his shoulder firm with poorly disguised irritation. “What’s gotten into you, you idiot? Running off in this kind of weather…”

“You didn’t even take an umbrella!” Kagura is beside him, her umbrella poking one side of his head. And then they see the tree, and fall silent.

“See?” Shinpachi’s voice is small under the wind and rain. “I brought them to see you…”   

Despite the weight of so many flowers the branches remain pointed skyward, almost embracing the storm. For every petal carried off by the wind another takes its place, and against the brooding grey clouds and the rain-shadowed buildings, the blossoms seem to glow. Neither thunder nor lightning can tear their gaze away, and when Gintoki manages to turn to Shinpachi to ask him if he’d looked after the tree all this time, the boy’s smile tells him all he needs to know.

**Author's Note:**

> I actually had an explanation for the tree but then I didn’t really know how to slot it in without completely changing the tone of the story, so I left it out :/ 
> 
> A few more things: 1) I based this tree off an actual tree in my neighbourhood which flowered spectacularly after the house it was behind was demolished; 2) there’s probably some Mushishi influence in here, and most importantly; 3) WRITE MORE SHINPACHI-CENTRIC FIC Y'ALL.


End file.
